JimLaPorta: #BREAKING Just in: The Department of Defense announced today that they will provide $200 million to Ukraine in security cooperation funds for additional training, equipment and advisory efforts to build the defensive capacity of Ukraine's forces.

Mattis knows what's going on. He really can't explicitly speak against it without losing his job and seeing someone worse in place.

Trump is destroying relationships with allies so this won't happen in the future. If America isn't helping our allies, Russia has a farkton more freedom do to as they wish, and they wish to rise up to their previous stature through any means necessary. Mattis is trying to get this over there before Trump ruins everything.

Mattis is one of the few adults left in the room. My Marine buds adore him, and would follow him into hell. I suspect the Army and Navy would support him 100% in a dispute between the White House and the D.O.D. Not sure about those Air Force guys though. They seemed to have a lot of holy rollers in the officer ranks.

Rwa2play:Markoff_Cheney: Time to pick sides mother farkers.Choose wisely, because history is going to remember. Mattis chose wisely for a guy who was picked because Trump liked saying MAD DOG! on stage.

And from what it sounds like Mattis (among others) prevented Trump from invading Venezuela.

Had that shiat gone badly, I think Trump would've been ousted right then and there.

I think we should explicitly re-evaluate all Presidential powers, and ask "can Trump be trusted with this". If the answer is no (like, say, the ability to put people on "kill lists" or render them to secret sites and turn them over to be tortured) then we should permanently remove the ability of any President to do them.

Maybe we should just neutralize the President in the way the UK has neutralized the royals.

Therion:$200 million? Isn't that like, one battle tank and a crate of stinger missiles?

Ukraine (and anyone else) don't pay the ridiculously inflated prices that the US taxpayer pays.We're the marks for the industry, you know, just like healthcare.

Pure speculation, but they can probably buy used tanks for the price of a luxury vehicle, if they want to buy used American tanks I bet they wouldn't even have to pay a mil a pop. Stinger missiles for about the cost of a high-end gaming computer.

I'm sure a lot of the cost will actually go to reinforcing their budgets on what they already have. But when the Pentagon and the US Congress aren't the ones middle-manning your hardware purchases, $200 million can go a lot farther than we're accustomed to thinking it can.

MurphyMurphy:Therion: $200 million? Isn't that like, one battle tank and a crate of stinger missiles?

Ukraine (and anyone else) don't pay the ridiculously inflated prices that the US taxpayer pays.We're the marks for the industry, you know, just like healthcare.

Pure speculation, but they can probably buy used tanks for the price of a luxury vehicle, if they want to buy used American tanks I bet they wouldn't even have to pay a mil a pop. Stinger missiles for about the cost of a high-end gaming computer.

I'm sure a lot of the cost will actually go to reinforcing their budgets on what they already have. But when the Pentagon and the US Congress aren't the ones middle-manning your hardware purchases, $200 million can go a lot farther than we're accustomed to thinking it can.

I know one thing, $200 M is a lot more than the cost of using a Russian SAM to blow up a civilian passenger aircraft.

We need that $200 million kept in the U.S. I would much rather see it spent on healthcare. That money could pay 20 ER visit bills, if the patients were each in there for under an hour and had no x-rays or CT scans.

you are a puppet:We need that $200 million kept in the U.S. I would much rather see it spent on healthcare. That money could pay 20 ER visit bills, if the patients were each in there for under an hour and had no x-rays or CT scans.

you are a puppet:We need that $200 million kept in the U.S. I would much rather see it spent on healthcare. That money could pay 20 ER visit bills, if the patients were each in there for under an hour and had no x-rays or CT scans.

MurphyMurphy:Therion: $200 million? Isn't that like, one battle tank and a crate of stinger missiles?

Ukraine (and anyone else) don't pay the ridiculously inflated prices that the US taxpayer pays.We're the marks for the industry, you know, just like healthcare.

Pure speculation, but they can probably buy used tanks for the price of a luxury vehicle, if they want to buy used American tanks I bet they wouldn't even have to pay a mil a pop. Stinger missiles for about the cost of a high-end gaming computer.

I'm sure a lot of the cost will actually go to reinforcing their budgets on what they already have. But when the Pentagon and the US Congress aren't the ones middle-manning your hardware purchases, $200 million can go a lot farther than we're accustomed to thinking it can.

The equipment doesn't even have to be fancy. Basic consumable supplies and additional training time can go a long way towards disrupting overly patriotic Russian soldier's vacations.

Sasquatchuan:Rwa2play: Markoff_Cheney: Time to pick sides mother farkers.Choose wisely, because history is going to remember. Mattis chose wisely for a guy who was picked because Trump liked saying MAD DOG! on stage.

And from what it sounds like Mattis (among others) prevented Trump from invading Venezuela.

Had that shiat gone badly, I think Trump would've been ousted right then and there.

Wait, I totally missed that about Venezuela. What was that?

It came out on the 4th. Rather than sanction Venezuela for Mudaro, Trump pressed to just depose him militarily.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - As a meeting last August in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions on Venezuela was concluding, President Donald Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can't the US just simply invade the troubled country?

The suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom have since left the administration. This account of the previously undisclosed conversation comes from a senior administration official familiar with what was said.

In an exchange that lasted around five minutes, McMaster and others took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments to punish President Nicolas Maduro for taking Venezuela down the path of dictatorship, according to the official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.